As part of the transportation revamp, I had to rearrange a few of the stores. Most notably, the hospital and police station couldn't stay downtown or nobody would be able to get to Rand for his quests.

Regarding the police station, there's a bit of narrative change. Rand starts out in the Somerset PD, but at the point that you finish the level 5 quest (casinos) Rand gets a promotion and moves downtown to the main headquarters. I realize that may be a bit confusing to folks, so I've added a note in your journal as a reminder if you haven't started the level 6 quest yet. For everyone else, here's a little taste of retroactive continuity for ya.

Last edited by Ryme on Wed Jan 21, 2009 2:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It's not really related, but I also took some steps to hide a couple of the Somerset zones until you gain a level or two. Part of the goal here is to reduce somewhat the large array of options given to newbies, on top of the goal of increasing strategizing. The groans of pain I've heard from some players about the upper limits of range confirm that I'm providing you all healthy, difficult, interesting choices.

Joined: Fri Nov 02, 2007 7:54 pmPosts: 517Location: Where I could swear I left the universe last...

Even when I thought I was gonna have to get my hands on a jetpack, I was still happy to see you expanding this particular underused content vector, as Jick would say. Though at the same time you've made things way more complicated for farmers who have to figure out now if they'll have to move back to the cube, and then how to keep clockwork ant totals up, and all sorts of annoying problems -_- I mean, couldn't you have at least let us finish spading the castle?

I think I also sent a bug report about this, but I'm not sure Rand is fully aware of this change. He told me right after the level 1 quest that I might catch him in his downtown office which he was yet to be promoted to.

Joined: Thu Sep 06, 2007 10:56 pmPosts: 1466Location: Berkeley when at school, San Diego when at home

I thought about what Olaf and K3v said, but I came to an odd conclusion. It may be just me, and while it has a solution, it's also sort of odd.

Clearly you want balanced choices where one side doesn't appear more advantageous without player's skill and/or situation. However, these kinds of situations are not particularly fun, I would think, because it's only a matter of optimization to determine the better path.

So what's really in a choice? What determines how much impact a decision in a choice has? Is there a way to use this fact to make TH more fun?

Joined: Fri Nov 02, 2007 7:54 pmPosts: 517Location: Where I could swear I left the universe last...

You'd have to say exactly what kind of choice you're talking about. Because a game is defined as a game by choices. That's what makes them not a book, or a movie, or whatever. You'll have to be more specific if you want to get into any deep philosophical conversation here.

Joined: Thu Sep 06, 2007 10:56 pmPosts: 1466Location: Berkeley when at school, San Diego when at home

Eh. Whatever.

And I mean by choices in a context of this game. Or similar webgames. There is less of a full game experience compared to, say, Left 4 Dead or Bioshock because it has much more fancy stuff (and a budget).

I'm not sure why you had to have me elaborate on this. This applies to just about anything. I'm targetting the very basis of choice.